More heartbreak from a Saints fan

I was cleaning out my email, and found a copy of an opinion piece that I was very lucky to have had the opportunity to write for the Herald Sun. I wrote this in my lunchbreak at work and it was published in the paper after St Kilda coach Ross Lyon made his cold and calculated move to Fremantle. This was September, 2011. 

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I’d love to have one single year without a St Kilda making headlines for all the wrong reasons. We’ve had sex scandals, nude photos of our beloved players stolen and ejected into cyberspace, spats between players and opposition coaches, and enough sensational headlines to last a lifetime.

And Thursday night gave us the biggest bombshell of all. Adored coach Ross Lyon – the man I genuinely believed would take us to our first premiership in half a century – had walked out on the club. St Kilda officials, players and supporters (hell, and even Ross’s management) were totally blindsided.

It’s been a bad week for St Kilda fans. Last Saturday we watched our 2011 premiership hopes slip away with each Sydney goal celebration. After the game, Ross Lyon joined the Saints as they huddled on the field, remaining there long after the Swans returned to the rooms. I’ve heard people say that the out on the ground can be the most private place for a footy club, away from the hangers on in the change room. So as fans we could only speculate what was being said. Of course we assumed it would be that the players need to focus, regroup and look ahead to next year. Strength through loyalty, right?

Then on Thursday night it was announced that Mark Harvey had been sacked, and rumours swirled about his replacement. Would it be Rodney Eade? That’s when the bombshell hit. It was Ross Lyon. I headed straight to the rumour mill- Twitter.

And so I watched it unfold, and it got worse.

Sure we heard rumours that Melbourne was interested in Lyon, but never did I consider that he would consider leaving the Saints, for Melbourne, or for anyone. So when I read that in fact Lyon had been talking to Fremantle for FIVE weeks, it was like a punch in the guts. He was finishing the season knowing that there was a fair chance that he wouldn’t be in a Saints polo shirt come trade week.

Fans were stunned. There was anger, shock, disgust. Don’t get me wrong, either. I don’t want to speak for all supporters (Ross certainly had his critics in fans, Shane Warne being a high-profile example), but most Saints supporters really liked Ross. I loved Ross, and he has certainly been St Kilda’s most successful modern coach. All those coming out of the woodwork now saying ‘I never liked him anyway’ are just feeling the hurt. And you know why? Because our coach has given up on us.

So here is my question Ross: why did you prematurely announce the retirements of three Saints players, including my favourite club veteran Steven Baker? Could it have not waited one more week after you’d gone,  or at least have given you time to speak to your players who would have done anything for the red, black and white?

Lyon rode the highs and the lows with the players, club officials and the supporters. Together we’ve felt the elation at two winning preliminary finals, the heart-pounding moments in three grand finals in two years, the same stunned, empty feeling of a drawn grand final, and the absolute heartbreak at two lost premierships. I watched the 2009 grand final squashed into standing room on the bottom level of the MCG. Half of the ground was obscured, but I lived and breathed every moment and like always, stayed til the very end.

For Ross to have come just so close to knowing what a premiership could feel like, and then walk away just blows my mind. Doesn’t he feel what we feel?

While the supporters are reeling, I can only begin to imagine what the players must be feeling. Ross didn’t sit down with the players and face them like he should have, he was a coward. I’ve heard that Ross was a tough man to work for. Sometimes he arrived at the club at 5am, and expected the same level of commitment from coaching staff and players alike. So when the players gave him the commitment he required, shouldn’t they expect the same from their coach? Next year would have been the real test for the Saints, and he owed them that.

Losing two consecutive grand finals (as well as the off-season that will haunt them forever) definitely did take its toll on my club. How could it not? How could you go all through that and still have the same level of drive and determination? But the Saints really did turn their season around, and put in a solid foundation for a better year in 2012. I want to know- why jump ship now? Give your players one more chance.

Call me naive, or even delusional, but I believe whole-heartedly that I will watch this playing group win the flag that they deserve, with or without Ross Lyon. I hope with all my heart that the club can get through this – its biggest challenge ever – and come out firing. St Kilda needs unity right now. I want all the club officials, the coaching staff and especially the players to know that their supporters are passionate and loyal, and we’ll be with them til the very end. 

Tosca

The story of our dog. The best I can give him is my words.

I met Tosca when I was seven years old. A local family had advertised puppies to give away, and Mum took  my brother Luke, my best friend and I to choose one. My first view of Tosca was seeing him chased around and around by his mother, including right through the back seat of our car and out the other side. He was born with an overbite, a condition that never gave him problems. But the original owners were planning to "knock him on the head" if they couldn't find a family for him. He was the black and white, stocky, pointy-eared brother of a ginger-coloured litter. He was the underdog, and we knew he was perfect. From that moment he was ours. But he was a dog who could never have been owned by someone. He belonged to us in the same way that we belonged to him. Just family.

Tosca wasn't a lap dog, or the sort of dog who would sleep at the end of your bed. He lived his own free and independent life. On the very first night he spent outside as a puppy, he bravely warded off a fox eyeing off our chooks. Our 13 acres were his territory, and he knew every corner like we did. He was a villain to the rabbits on our land, and spent much of his happy life chasing a sprinting rabbit along the hillside. In the long summers when the grass would be tall and golden, you could watch the waves as Tosca would weave through the grass. When the chase was on he would leap high, his head reaching above the sea of gold to follow the movement of his poor puff-tailed prey. He would visit our dam to cool off; wading through the cool water and mud, lapping some up with his pink tongue as he walked.

On our childhood adventures through the paddocks, he was always by our side. We would climb through fences, and he would stalk the fenceline with his nose, looking for the right place to follow us under. Sometimes we would lift it up for him, but he usually always found a way in on his own. He never walked on a lead, and could mostly be trusted to behave. He wasn't interested in chasing sheep or chooks, but he did have to be called occasionally when we ventured into the Sandon forest and he picked up the scent of kangaroos. Thankfully he never had a run-in with a snake, despite plenty of opportunities, but he did unfortunately do some minor damage to a rather angry blue-tongue lizard that he was 'protecting' us from.

He was by my side the day I ran away from home (unprepared, on a cool autumn evening in summer pyjamas). He sat with me at the end of our long driveway, and as he waited patiently beside me for nothing in particular, that was the moment that I knew he understood. He understood humans in more ways than one, including the year he ate all of the Cadbury Creme eggs on our Easter egg hunt, leaving the cheaper and slightly less delicious options unscathed. Despite chocolate's toxicity to dogs, his iron stomach won that round. He also survived eating a huge pellet of rat poison, and enjoyed many more years of healthy life after that.

When I left home, it hurt so much to leave my family behind and my visits to Sandon were the only time I felt whole. When the car would stop at the top of the hill, I knew Tosca's wagging tail and cold black nose would be waiting to greet me. Like big skies, cool floorboards underfoot and cups of tea with Mum, Tosca's presence at Sandon was something that was unchanging - a comfort knitted into every visit. Luke left not long after me, and Tosca and Mum became sole companions at Sandon. As the years rolled on by, he slowed down. That's we were so surprised when he showed up one Easter with a huge rabbit in his mouth, and he was as proud as could be.

His last few years were not his best; he had lost his stockiness, his big black ears were no longer really hearing, and his eyes were clouded with a darkness he couldn't see past. His nature became needier, and his loss of independence revealed the kindness, companionship and mutual understanding between him and my mum. If she left him inside for a moment without her, he anxiously waited by the door for her return. Mum cooked him special meals, and when he was too unwell to sleep inside, she created a small pen around his kennel with straw to keep him comfortable. He gave her companionship and a welcoming wag of his tail when she came home from work.

We lost our dear dog this year, after his 17th birthday. It wasn't a trip to the vet, and it wouldn't have been right for his free spirit. He simply wandered a little way from the house and came to rest. My first visit back home without him was at Christmas, and he should have been waiting for us when we arrived, and he wasn't. He should have had his wet nose making marks on the window at the back door, but he wasn't there. He should have been sneaking onto Mum's expensive rug without her noticing, which was their nightly game. But there was no usual outburst from Mum shooing him away.

In our life as a family, there has been so much difficult change to get through and Tosca has always been a comfort and our companion. We have lost our dog, and Sandon, with its rolling grass, creaky gum trees, and slow, winding creek, has lost its guardian.

Goodbye to our dearest dog.